Covid facility fire in Andhra Pradesh kills 10, injures 20
HYDERABAD: A fire broke out at a hotel being used as a Covid-19 treatment facility in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada city early on Sunday, killing 10 patients, officials said.
About 31 patients of the coronavirus disease were in the facility, most of them deep in sleep, along with six medical personnel and six staffers in the facility at the time the fire broke out. The 10 victims suffocated to death.
The fire broke out at around 4.45am on the ground floor of the hotel and spread to the other floors.
HYDERABAD : A fire broke out at a hotel being used as a Covid-19 treatment facility in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada city early on Sunday, killing 10 patients, officials said.
About 31 patients of the coronavirus disease were in the facility, most of them deep in sleep, along with six medical personnel and six staff in the facility at the time the fire broke out. The 10 victims suffocated to death.
The hotel — Swarna Palace — was being used as a care centre for Covid-19 patients by the privately run Ramesh Hospitals.
According state health minister Alla Kali Krishna Prasad, the fire broke out at around 4.45 am on the ground floor of the hotel and spread to the first and second floors. Preliminary investigations by the police revealed that the fire was the result of a shortcircuit in the electric wiring.
Flames engulfed the building and thick plumes of smoke billowed from the building. Some the medical personnel and hotel staff managed to escape by running out and four of them jumped off the first and second floors to save their lives. A security guard, Krishna Reddy, suffered injuries by falling to the ground.
Many of the patients were fast asleep when the fire broke out. Some young patients tried to run out of the rooms but did not know how to escape because of the fire and smoke that engulfed the building. “I did not know in which direction I was moving. I managed to open the window panes and come out shouting for help. I picked up courage and informed the police,” a patient, Pavan Sai, said in a video message.
“The fire was brought under control within a couple of hours,” the health minister said. After putting out the fire, the firemen and personnel of the National Disaster Response Force brought out the bodies of 10 patients. The bodies were shifted to a government hospital for post-mortem.
The dead were identified as: Kosaraju Suvarnalath (42) of Nidabrolu village of Ponnur block in Guntur district; Dokku Siva Brahmaiah (59) of Machilipatnam
in Krishna district; Potluri Purnachandra Rao of Kodali in Krishna district; Sunkara Babu Rao (80), Indira Nagar, Vijayawada; Majji Gopi (54) of Machilipatnam; G Venkata Jaya Lakshmi (52) of Kandukuru in Prakasam district; Venkata Narasimha Pavan Kumar (40) of Kandukuru in Prakasam; Sabbili Ratna Abraham (48), Rajakumari (40), both from Jaggayyapet; and Maddali Raghu (40) of Moghulraja Puram, Vijayawada.
In all, the firemen rescued 18 Covid-19 patients, who were taken to a hospital, where they were declared out of danger.
Following a formal complaint from Vijayawada Central tehsildar (block revenue official), the police registered criminal cases against the managements of Ramesh Hospitals and Swarna Palace Hotel under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 read with 34 (acts amounting to culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
The tehsildar said Ramesh Hospital had a memorandum of understanding with Swarna Palace Hotel to operate a Covid-19 facility on a paid basis.
Chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced ex gratia of ₹50 lakh to each of families of the deceased and ordered an in-depth probe into the incident
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences and spoke to the chief minister over the phone about the fire.